Intelligent Design....?

[spuriousmonkey]

In fact, no beneficial mutation has ever actually been observed.

I went to pubmed and oh boy. I didn't even need to scroll. Second article already showed beneficial mutations. And I was actually looking for something else. Just out:

Mol Biol Evol. 2007 Feb 24; [Epub ahead of print]
Chromosome Rearrangements and the Evolution of Genome Structuring and Adaptability.



Eukaryotes appear to evolve by micro and macro rearrangements. This is observed not only for long-term evolutionary adaptation, but also in short-term experimental evolution of yeast, S. cerevisiae. Moreover, based on these and other experiments it has been postulated that repeat elements, retroposons for example, mediate such events. We study an evolutionary model in which genomes with retroposons and a breaking/repair mechanism are subjected to a changing environment. We show that retroposon-mediated rearrangements can be a beneficial mutational operator for short-term adaptations to a new environment. But simply having the ability of rearranging chromosomes does not imply an advantage over genomes in which only single gene insertions and deletions occur. Instead, a structuring of the genome is needed: genes that need to be amplified (or deleted) in a new environment have to cluster. We show that genomes hosting retroposons, starting with a random order of genes, will in the long run become organized, which enables (fast) rearrangement-based adaptations to the environment. In other words, our model provides a "proof of principle" that genomes can structure themselves in order to increase the beneficial effect of chromosome rearrangements.

or here:
Pattern of nucleotide substitution and divergence of prophenoloxidase in decapods
Fish & Shellfish Immunology
Volume 22, Issue 6 , June 2007, Pages 628-640

Despite the unprecedented development in identification and characterization of prophenoloxidase (proPO) in commercially important decapods, little is known about the evolutionary relationship, rate of amino acid replacement and differential selection pressures operating on proPO of different species of decapods. Here we report the evolutionary relationship among these nine decapod species based on proPO gene and types of selective pressures operating on proPO codon sites. Our analyses revealed that all the nine decapod species shared a common ancestor. The mean percentage sequence divergence at proPO gene was 34.4 ± 0.6%. Pairwise estimates of nonsynonymous to synonymous ratio (ω) for Homarus americanus–H. gammarus is greater than one, therefore indicating adaptive evolution (functional diversification) of proPO in these two species. In contrast, strong purifying selection (ω < 1) was observed in all other species pairs. However, phylogenetically closely related decapods revealed relatively higher ω value (ω = 0.15 ± 0.3) than the distantly related species pairs (ω = 0.0075 ± 0.005). These discrepancies could be due to higher fixation probability of beneficial mutationnext term in closely related species. Maximum likelihood-based codon substitution analyses revealed a strong purifying selection operating on most of the codon sites, therefore suggesting proPO is functionally constrained (purifying selection). Codon substitution analyses have also revealed the evidence of strong purifying selection in haemocyanin subunits of decapods.

or here:
J.J. Bull, M.R. Badgett and H.A. Wichman, Big-benefit mutations in a bacteriophage inhibited with heat, Mol Biol Evol 17 (2000), pp. 942–950.

or here:

Nature Reviews Genetics 4, 457-469 (2003); doi:10.1038/nrg1088
EVOLUTION EXPERIMENTS WITH MICROORGANISMS: THE DYNAMICS AND GENETIC BASES OF ADAPTATION

ore here:
PNAS | June 20, 2000 | vol. 97 | no. 13 | 6981-6985
Bacteria are different: Observations, interpretations, speculations, and opinions about the mechanisms of adaptive evolution in prokaryotes

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

There you have it, goo to you.

 

[Saquist]

Inteligent Design is a logical thought problem when approaching structures that preform specific task and do so repeatedly with a large amount of sucess. This includes cycles.

The Enviroment and Biology aswell as astronomy exemplify cycles. However man made (artificial) structures exemplify structured processes.

The correlation is academic. Observation leads us along.

Astronomy, Biology, and the Enviroment exemplify Greater efficiency.
All three exemplify Greater consistencies.
All thre exemplify Greater Endurance in productivity than artifical devices.

This defines greater.

complex (adj.) Consisting of interconnected or interwoven parts; composite.
complex (adj.) Involved or intricate, as in structure; complicated.
complex (n.) A whole composed of interconnected or interwoven parts: a complex of cities and suburbs; the military-industrial complex.

This defines complex which is exactly what all three exude, complexity, inbalance preforming a consistent function.

Michael Behe correctly defines irreducilbity of complexity.
Without the functional parts of each the whole would cease to preform it's function. It is a logic problem.

 

[Lote-Tree]

Michael Behe correctly defines irreducilbity of complexity.

Without the functional parts of each the whole would cease to preform it's function. It is a logic problem.

But has not Michela Behe's Irreducible Bacterial Flagelum been found not to be Irreducible at all?

 

[Saquist]

Has it? I haven't heard of such a devolpment untill you brought it up.
All that I've heard is that there have been attempts to classify his formula as debunked based on the math alone.

With an incredulous disgust I've rejected a mathematical basis for dismissing the theory as the parameters of the theory are not a mathematical logic problem.

 

[RoyLennigan]

The "only" problem with that is that is not described in the Bible.

I never read the bible. Not a problem for me.

 

[Theophage]

Hello again, VitalOne.

This has nothing to do with religion, its just a fair quesiton, although it does have some religious and philosophical implications,

The modern movement called Intelligent Design has everything to do with religion, as it is little more than stealth creationism. But if you do not wish to discuss religion in this thread, that is fine with me.

Actually, all sources confirm that Discovery Institute discourages the teaching of intelligent design in schools...

From what I understand, the leaked "wedge strategy" document from a few years ago shows that the Disco Institute's public image and private motives are two very different things. But since I'm feeling lazy and don't really want to go digging stuff up on Google, I will conceed this point to you.

if you search everywhere for missing links between two species but find absolutely nothing then how did it evolve? Did 300 million DNA bases just magically change in one mutuation? An intelligent cause would be an inevitable conclusion, that or a major revision in modern evolution would be neccessary...

See, I'm still really not getting what you mean by this. Why would "300 million DNA bases" need to change in one mutation just because we can't find a particular fossil? And again, just because we cannot explain something based on our current knowledge, that means that an intelligent cause must be the inevitable conclusion? That does not follow logically. If I don't know what is causing my car to run poorly, should I therefore conclude it is being posessed by a gremlin? I don't think so.

Actually lots of archeologists are called when people believe they've found a new ancient civilization or whatever. They check to see if it really is an artificial, intelligent creation, like seeing right angles and things like that buildings.

Yes, that is true, however they don't use theories of Irreducible complexity or calculations of Specified Complexity to do so. They do so exactly as I'd said in my last post: by comparing to things known to be designed and known to be natural.

Again something classified as natural is natural if the evidence shows it to be......not if it simply fits into what evolutinists want to believe...

Sorry, but that is false. Dembski tried to do this very slight of hand trick when he developed his "Explanatory Filter". The filter basically said that if something is not explainable by chance or by (known) natural law, then it must therefore be intelligently designed. The problem is that again, this does not logically follow. Something can be due to natural laws and processes that are as of yet unknown or poorly understood. If science simply gave up when it could not explain something using current knowledge, then it never would have gotten anywhere. Is that what you suggest we do, throw our hands in the air and give up trying to find explanations for things?

But fossils are neccessary for species that we simply don't have genetic samples for, like Dinosaurs. Evolutionists even tried to hoax a missing link between chimpanzees and humans...how pathetic...

They are not necessary at all. Is it necessary to dig up all someones ancestors to prove that person A is descended from person B? No, genetics is sufficient for this.

What hoax missing link are you talking about? What about all the other "missing links" between chimps and humans? Shall I list them? I think perhaps your knowledge of evolution and fossils is severely lacking.

Evolutionists simply dodge the question, something natural is something natural when the evidence shows it to be such, if you search everywhere for missing links between two species who's DNA is pretty similar but find absolutely nothing, what is the conclusion then?

Hmmm...did you want to discuss intelligent design or did you want to simply bitch about "evolutionists" (whatever that is)? Because you seem to be doing all of the latter and none of the former.

If you look everywhere on Earth and there's absolutely nothing linking the species (but there should be as per evolution) then what is the conclusion? Again forget about religion and theism and atheism for a second...what would be the logical conclusion?

The logical conclusion is based on why those fossils aren't there. Are they not there because fossilization only happens in certain environments and conditions, or is it because the animals never existed?

The fact is that we have found millions of so-called "transitional fossils", plenty to show that the evolution of life on Earth is a fact. I have a feeling that you simply don't know about any of them. If this is a subject that you feel strongly about, you should take the time to learn more about it. I'd post links, but I'm still under 20 posts here and cannot.

Now, do you want to discuss intelligent design yet, or are you satisfied with "Evolution doesn't work, therefore the Grand Old Designer did it!!!"

 

[Theophage]

But has not Michela Behe's Irreducible Bacterial Flagelum been found not to be Irreducible at all?

Howdy Lote-Tree,

Irreducible Complexity (IC) is actually found quite a bit in nature. To put it simply, a system is IC if the removal of any of its parts causes the system not to function. For a non-natural example, think of a masonry arch: if any of the stones in the arch are subtracted, then the entire arch fails.

The (false) implication here is that if the system cannot function without all of its parts, then such a system could not have evolved unless it either a) sat around non-functional until all of its parts evolved or, b) it all evolved together.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it assumes evolution must work only by stepwise addition of parts. Evolution most commonly works by modifying existing features; including outright duplication of them. There are good examples of this out there, but I am unable to post any links due to not having 20 posts completed yet. Try Googling for "behe" "IC" and "debunk"

So as you can see, whether or not the flagella is IC is irrelevant as to whether it could have evolved or not. ID theorists such as Behe says that only ID can produce IC structures, but that is patently false.

 

[VitalOne]

Hello again, VitalOne.




The modern movement called Intelligent Design has everything to do with religion, as it is little more than stealth creationism. But if you do not wish to discuss religion in this thread, that is fine with me.

This is just what the Discovery Institute said would happen, now no one can have a fair and open discussion of ID...people just conclude its a religious idea and thats it...

See, I'm still really not getting what you mean by this. Why would "300 million DNA bases" need to change in one mutation just because we can't find a particular fossil? And again, just because we cannot explain something based on our current knowledge, that means that an intelligent cause must be the inevitable conclusion? That does not follow logically. If I don't know what is causing my car to run poorly, should I therefore conclude it is being posessed by a gremlin? I don't think so

It does follow logically let me explain. If there is no missing link between two species, meaning no missing link is ever found, we've searched the entire Earth, then something really doesn't fit in modern evolution. It would mean either the fossils some how disappeared, or some how in a few mutations by chance the species just evolved. This is what you could conclude using modern evolution. But neither of these conclusions make any sense, the chance the species would simply by chance perfectly evolve into a new species is very small, and why would the fossils just disappear when all others haven't? An intelligent cause would make sense, either that or modern evolution should be seriously revised there should be a new theory explaining what the hell happened....

Sorry, but that is false. Dembski tried to do this very slight of hand trick when he developed his "Explanatory Filter". The filter basically said that if something is not explainable by chance or by (known) natural law, then it must therefore be intelligently designed. The problem is that again, this does not logically follow. Something can be due to natural laws and processes that are as of yet unknown or poorly understood. If science simply gave up when it could not explain something using current knowledge, then it never would have gotten anywhere. Is that what you suggest we do, throw our hands in the air and give up trying to find explanations for things?

No I'm not saying that if something is unexplainable then conclude that there is an intelligent cause, I'm saying if the only logical conclusion is that there's an intelligent cause, then conclude that there is an intelligent cause...there's a big difference....

If it is illogical to conclude that The Great Pyramids were simply natural formations, then don't....

They are not necessary at all. Is it necessary to dig up all someones ancestors to prove that person A is descended from person B? No, genetics is sufficient for this.

In that context it isn't necessary, but for extinct species it is...

What hoax missing link are you talking about? What about all the other "missing links" between chimps and humans? Shall I list them? I think perhaps your knowledge of evolution and fossils is severely lacking.

The Piltdown man look it up....because they wanted things to so match up with Darwinian evolution lets create our own missing link with a human-like skull and ape-like jaw....evolutionists will do anything to fit things into Darwinian evolution

Hmmm...did you want to discuss intelligent design or did you want to simply bitch about "evolutionists" (whatever that is)? Because you seem to be doing all of the latter and none of the former.

I'm not bitching I'm just wondering why evolutionists just seem to always avoid the question...there answer is always something like lets just say its "unexplainable" right now but that doesn't make ID true....completely dodging the question...

The logical conclusion is based on why those fossils aren't there. Are they not there because fossilization only happens in certain environments and conditions, or is it because the animals never existed?

Well if other fossils are found in the same area then it means indeed there should be fossils if the species existed....

The fact is that we have found millions of so-called "transitional fossils", plenty to show that the evolution of life on Earth is a fact. I have a feeling that you simply don't know about any of them. If this is a subject that you feel strongly about, you should take the time to learn more about it. I'd post links, but I'm still under 20 posts here and cannot.

They may indeed show that evolution is a fact...but that still wouldn't contradict ID...for instance if humans genetically engineer a new species could there be anyway for anyone to know if it was a species that evolved naturally or one that was intelligently designed?

Now, do you want to discuss intelligent design yet, or are you satisfied with "Evolution doesn't work, therefore the Grand Old Designer did it!!!"

See what I mean, evolutionists just dodge the questions by ridiculing ID instead of actually addressing the claims....

 

[iceaura]

Michael Behe correctly defines irreducilbity of complexity.
Without the functional parts of each the whole would cease to preform it's function. It is a logic problem.

If applied to evolution, it is a logical fallacy: complexity is only irreducible with respect to a predetermined function, and predetermination of function is specifically denied by Darwinian theory - hence, no natural (i.e. purposeless) complexity is irreducible.

Behe's famous mousetrap, for example, is only irreducible if it has to catch mice. As a doorstop, it works fine with lots of parts missing. Likewise blood clotting setups - they have other uses, those proteins, in other settings.

This kind of fundamental mistake about Darwinian theory is very common, even among well-educated people. Evolutionary theory is not as easy to grasp as some would insist.

and why would the fossils just disappear when all others haven't?

All the others have, except for a scattered few. And we are nowhere near searching the whole earth even approximately (it's mostly under water, for one thing) let alone thoroughly enough to make likely the outside chance that the smattering we chance upon of the remnant fossilized will include the very ones we would find key.

It's far more amazing that we have a fossil record as good as we do, than that we're missing steps in evolutionary lineages. Darwinian theory does not demand that fossils exist.

 

[Theophage]

See what I mean, evolutionists just dodge the questions by ridiculing ID instead of actually addressing the claims....

Well, Ive been trying to get you to discuss the claims of ID for a couple of posts now, and all you've done is whine about evolution. So let's break that cycle:

How can we detect design? What falsifiable predictions does "Intellligent Design theory" make? Can we test them?

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Perhaps the better question is where is any supposed unintelligent design?

 

[Saquist]

I suggest testing Behe's theory of irreducibilty.

It rather simple: Stating that certain components of biology can not simply happenstance onto functionality.

I find this true. Every major organ of the human body works under this thinking. Remove them and the body no longer function normaly...or with in acceptable parameters.

To do so the body would have to have evolved with redundancies...The body is not the space shuttle. It is not tripple redundant in avionics and navigation, in likeness. The body repairs It doesn't do "just in case"

 

[Sarkus]

It does follow logically let me explain. If there is no missing link between two species, meaning no missing link is ever found, we've searched the entire Earth, then something really doesn't fit in modern evolution. It would mean either the fossils some how disappeared, or some how in a few mutations by chance the species just evolved. This is what you could conclude using modern evolution. But neither of these conclusions make any sense, the chance the species would simply by chance perfectly evolve into a new species is very small, and why would the fossils just disappear when all others haven't? An intelligent cause would make sense, either that or modern evolution should be seriously revised there should be a new theory explaining what the hell happened....

Your logic is flawed and you have not applied Occam's Razor.

ONE POSSIBILITY is that of I.D. - requiring the existence of the "designer" - for which we have no evidence. It is an unknown.

Another possibility is that the fossils have simply deteriorated over the past million years or so. This does not require an unknown. It certainly makes proving the theory more difficult - but other evidence might present itself later.

Which is more likely?

Answer: that the fossils have simply deteriorated.

THIS IS LOGICAL.

THIS IS THE MORE LIKELY EXPLANATION - NOT ID.

ID remains a possibility due to the lack of evidence to contradict it - the way the FSM remains a possibility.
But ID is NOT the most likely explanation, not even in your bizarre assumptive case....

...you start your "logical analysis" with the assumption that the entire earth has been excavated for the fossils. When this happens maybe you can come back to the table with ID - and you will still be in a less-logical position than other alternatives.

No I'm not saying that if something is unexplainable then conclude that there is an intelligent cause, I'm saying if the only logical conclusion is that there's an intelligent cause, then conclude that there is an intelligent cause...there's a big difference....

But you, and all other ID supporters to-date, have failed to provide any evidence that concludes there is an intelligent designer.

Lack of evidence for a simpler explanation IS NOT evidence for a complex explanation.

I'm not bitching I'm just wondering why evolutionists just seem to always avoid the question...there answer is always something like lets just say its "unexplainable" right now but that doesn't make ID true....completely dodging the question...

You only think this because you appear to have no grasp of either science or logic...

Well if other fossils are found in the same area then it means indeed there should be fossils if the species existed....

Or geology.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Perhaps the better question is where is any supposed unintelligent design?

Most things that humans make are unintelligently designed.

 

[Sarkus]

Most things that humans make are unintelligently designed.

Even humans are relatively unintelligently designed.
We break easily.
We have a short life-span.
We only see in part of the EM spectrum.
We have no redundancy of organs (2 hearts would surely have been better than 1?)
We can't run very fast - or climb very well - or swim underwater for any great length - any such things without aid.

Not very intelligent at all, IMO.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Even accepting the idea of an intelligent designer, it would still be most likely that the designer's methods were through a process not unlike evolution. Anything less would be nearing the inefficientness of human methodology.

 

[Theophage]

I suggest testing Behe's theory of irreducibilty.

Hello Saquist,

I don't really understand most of your posts, but the quoted part above was easy enough.

Behe's theory has been tested and found to be fallacious. There is nothing about an irreducibly complex system that prevents it from evolving via natural processes. Behe's criticism is only valid if evolution only operates to add parts to a system sequentially, which it most certainly does not.

Since I can't post links, you can go ahead and google "Behe", "IC", and "debunk" yourself. The first link goes to a page on the TalkOrigins site that has plenty of specific info.

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

So "evolution adds parts" all at once? Great, "punctuated equlibrium" no doubt.

 

[Theophage]

So "evolution adds parts" all at once? Great, "punctuated equlibrium" no doubt.

Howdy IAC,

See, now I'm conflicted. In the other thread, I'd said that it was pointless to respond to you, but what you said above is just pulling on me so strongly that I cannot resist.

No, I'm not talking about adding all parts at once. As I'd written to Lote-Tree above, evolution works by modifying what already exists. This allows it to produce a "scaffolding effect" in creating IC systems. Feel free to google "IC" and "blood clotting" for specific examples of what I'm talking about.

Though I know you won't...but what is said is said.